Lady Mary Fairfax

Becoming the third wife of media magnate Warwick Fairfax in 1959 landed Lady Mary in a powerful and influential role as First Lady of John Fairfax & Sons, later to become Fairfax Media. Equal-parts ambition and generosity, by this time she was a businesswoman in her own right with a chain of dress shops in Sydney.   

Warwick Fairfax died in 1987 and Lady Mary became, for a time, the richest woman in Australia. Fairfax Media then owned The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and The Australian Financial Review, as well as a host of magazines including Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping and People, and television and radio stations.  

Mary Fairfax was born Marie Wein to a Polish Jewish family in Warsaw. Her parents came to Australia in the late 1920s to escape persecution by the anti-Semitic movement that was gathering momentum in Europe at that time. The Wein family settled in Broken Hill where Mary’s father, Kevin Wein, sold clothing door to door for several years. When they moved to Sydney in the mid 1930’s, the Weins set up a chain of clothing stores. At some point while she was growing up, Marie decided that she would prefer to be known as Mary. She was bright, inquisitive and ambitious, winning prizes in Chemistry and History at the Presbyterian Ladies College in Sydney. Lady Mary’s insistence in later life that it was she who set up the clothing stores may well be true. 

It was always Mary Wein’s intent to marry well and to move in the highest circles, and she did, twice.  She was also self-made and brought her own successes to both her marriages. Her first husband was prominent Sydney solicitor Cedric Symonds, and it was whilst married to him that she met, and fell in love with, Warwick Fairfax. When she and Warwick married in 1959 she converted from Judaism to Catholicism. 

There was trouble in the Fairfax empire almost immediately Lady Mary joined the family, and she was instrumental in forming the new company: a partnership between Warwick and his son James Fairfax. Internal politics took over and Warwick was replaced by James as Chairman of the company. Lady Mary, meanwhile, was creating her own financial portfolio, with a personal fortune in 2002 of A$285m, according to Business Review Weekly.

Lady Mary Fairfax had equally impressive social and philanthropic portfolios. In 1973 she  held a ball for the opening of the Sydney Opera House with 1000 invited guests, including then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, Sir John Kerr, Imelda Marcos, Rudolf Nureyev and Liberace. After Warwick’s death in 1987 she devoted her life to the arts and to many charities. She was a generous supporter of the Australian Opera, the Australian Ballet and, amongst other charities: Freedom from Hunger and St Vincent’s Foundation. She also donated millions to breast cancer and cardiac research. 

She was appointed Officer of Order of the British Empire in 1976, and Member of the Order of Australia in 1988. 

Lady Mary Fairfax died in 2017 and, in the same spirit as she had lived, bequeathed her Double Bay mansion, Fairwater, to her loyal household staff.